4870 BIOS FAN Changes

[falco]

Hi,

Using RBE I'm trying to only change fan settings to start a bit early, from 58 to 48 or below, as in idle this card stays near 80c and my PC does not like so much!:shadedshu
After saving the modified BIOS a dos compare give me the followings differences and I would like to be sure before flashing the card, especially see offset 7...

Compare error at OFFSET 7
file1 = 0
file2 = 6
Compare error at OFFSET E06F
file1 = 23
file2 = 37
Compare error at OFFSET E075
file1 = 58
file2 = 45
Compare error at OFFSET E0B2
file1 = 94
file2 = 93
Compare error at OFFSET E0B4
file1 = 121
file2 = 122
Compare error at OFFSET E0B5
file1 = 135
file2 = 128

 

[falco]

Hi,

Using RBE I'm trying to only change fan settings to start a bit early, from 58 to 48 or below, as in idle this card stays near 80c and my PC does not like so much!:shadedshu
After saving the modified BIOS a dos compare give me the followings differences and I would like to be sure before flashing the card, especially see offset 7...

A part from the above, I've tried to export and load the actual BIOS in RBE but I can't figure how my card is working right now. According to the fan table (which is the same as many default settings I've seen) when temp is 70c fan should spin at 30% (more or less without taking care of hysteresis etc).

My card run much slower that this, despite the BIOS setting.

 

[buggalugs]

All you have to do is change Tmax (from 101) to 91 and Tmin (from 58) to 48.

That will change your temps from about 80 degrees idle to 55-60 degrees idle. The fan is also quiet until you start gamng.

I've been using it for months no problems.

Not sure about the rest...but you can read your current bios using GPUz. (save with GPUz Open in RBE).

 

[REVHEAD]

If you install Catylist 8.10 that has a fan speed controller built in, way easier and safer than hosing a bios flash, and frying yah card?

 

[falco]

you are right, setting the BIOS Fan with a TMin of 40 (that's what I'm trying to use) keeps the card cooler, about 56c idle with fan at 26%

I know Catalyst allow you to set manually the fan speed but this will not work until you log on onto Windows (and you must also make the same change to all accounts!).

Changing the BIOS has the advantage to work in any condition and from any boot (DOS, Windows, Linux and also during BIOS) without the need to start any additional application.

On my PC, which is probably not well cooled (though I've a Lian Li V1000+ case ), the card raise easily up to 80c on idle and for some unknown reasons (might be the card itself or maybe others motherboard chips like the north bridge) it tends to freeze in about 30/40 minutes!

Note the P5PE premium is surely an overclocker champion but is also quite sensible and may become unstable, especially with high clocked RAM of 1600+ and needs to be well cooled all the time. Hence I suspect that the card is overheating the system when staying at 80c all the time. I think that ATI wrongly chose for high working temperature in favor of a low noise operation as this may affect other part of the system .

So from my side I can only recommend to change the fan setting from the BIOS and spank ATI

If you install Catylist 8.10 that has a fan speed controller built in, way easier and safer than hosing a bios flash, and frying yah card?

 

[Scyphe]

Here's how I "boosted" the auto-fan settings with RBE:

Before:


After:


I replaced the stock cooling goo with AS5. Oh, it's not the stock cooler on my PowerColor card, it's got the PCS+ cooler (google for info) but generally it should be enough to nudge the table with slightly higher fan speeds at slightly lower temps to get a cooler card.

Note: when I flashed my 4870 using ATIWinFlash my heart sank real fast since it seemed the PC had frozen. I waited and I waited, and my heart sank deeper and deeper and I began planning how to restore the card using a second card to fix a bootable flash stick with atiflash, original ati-bios and a batch script. I went to the bathroom and when I came back I saw the message: "Completed reflash successfully" (or something similar). The relief was indescribable. Just wanted to tell this story as a hint to others reflashing their 4870'ies for the first time.